Identity — The sub-conscious guide
“Identity is this incredible invisible force that controls your whole life. It’s invisible, like gravity is invisible, but it controls your whole life.” — Tony Robbins
Life comes in various flavors and shades. Every incident and action by an individual in facing life has a scale and metric. Out of all metrics , the most common and fundamental metric is the concept of Identity. Identity is fundamental for existence. Every individual longs for identity and makes choices in professional, personal, family and behavioral domains to craft his/her identity as per his/her wish. Most times in life, attitude and behavior is guided sub-consciously for the purpose of identity. Right from historical wars that were fought for money, power, love or freedom to current day battles that everyone takes up on their own stride on personal, professional and behavioral fronts , there is only one fundamental fabric — Identity.
Identity can be classified fundamentally into 2 categories:
- Inborn/inbuilt Identity: This includes one’s intellect, character, attitude , ability to adapt and basic physical and mental stability. These components constitute one’s default identity even before one consciously thinks about crafting an identity for himself or herself. These are the basic elements that govern most of one’s activities in the battle for identity.
- Acquired Identity: This includes one’s profession, passion/hobby, education, religion, friends and everything else that is a conscious choice taken to enrich one’s identity. This portion of one’s identity is to a large extent influenced by the surroundings in which the individual thrives.
Although the categories of identity are mentioned above, it is always a complex combination / blend of the two that one tries to strive for in day-to-day life.
The identity battle which has the blend of the above mentioned categories as the source, has 2 extremes when it is exhibited behaviorally:
- Arrogance: When a person is regarded arrogant/headstrong, it is understood that the person is selfish/insecure in operating his/her identity. This extreme is essential in certain situations in one’s life. However, when one is constantly subscribing to this extreme, it is mentally a very submissive life even though he/she might seem confident. Long term subscription to this extreme is a classic example of Identity Crisis.
- Humility: When a person is regarded humble or is actually humble, the stakes are much lower. This infers that the individual is confident about operating his/her identity. However, this is also not a permanent state that one can always remain in. The individual may look submissive at times while operating in this extreme, but the inside of the individual would be very clear objective wise.
It is between these 2 extremes that all identity battles take place. Right from children to youngsters to adults to elders — all of them are mentally battling to stay relevant in today’s world . After a stage, the basic premise of one’s identity is fixed. Acquired identities and influence of surroundings may add temporary identity stubs that are required for the individual.
Identity is important. However, it is also important to note that when one is trying to craft an identity just for the sake of it without involvement, it leads to mental problems and inferiority complexes in the long run. Spending time and energy excessively to fake one’s identity is harmful. Most of what we regard as utmost important and full of tension-filled elements will lose its relevance with time. Time will catch up with every single individual. There is no running away from it.
